Program Documentation

Program Documentation

Program Documentation

Program documentation consists of a set of notes, diagrams, etc., which accompany a program to help with its implementation.

REASONS FOR PRODUCING DOCUMENTATION

1 To enable the people designing and writing the program to work together.

2 To explain to the user of the program what to do.

3 To help people responsible for maintaining or modifying the program.

Documentation is usually in two distinct parts:

1 Documentation for users of the program.

2 Technical documentation for use by programmers.

DOCUMENTATION FOR THE USER

This usually contains information about:

1 Background-an explanation of the system that the program is designed to work within.

2 What the program does:

(a) What problems the program solves and its role in the system.

(b) What options it offers the user.

(c) Limitations of the program-what it will not do.

3 The computing requirements-what hardware and software are necessary to run it successfully.

4 How to collect and prepare data for the program. If this involves special documents there will be instructions on how to fill them in.

5 How to operate the program. For a batch program the system control cards necessary to get it to run. For an interactive program there will also be details of the conversation when it is run.

6 How to interpret the output.

Note: the user documentation for a software package is called a User Manual.

DOCUMENTATION FOR A PROGRAMMER

This documentation may be used by:

1 The programmer who wrote the program, or

2 People working with the programmer, such as the systems analyst and the programmer’s supervisor, or

3 A programmer responsible for maintaining or modifying the program.

The documentation would usually include:

1 A system flowchart with annotation

2 Program flowcharts with annotation

3 Technical details of any limitations, special features, different versions, etc.

4 A program listing accompanied by a list of the variables used in the program and an explanation of their purpose.

5 Details of data structures used-e.g. files and arrays.

6 A set of test data and expected output with which to check that the program operates successfully.

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